In order to increase the likelihood for authoritative contact with a pitched baseball or softball, batters are instructed to develop a swing that keeps the barrel of their bat in the hitting zone for as long as possible. Referred to as “staying inside the ball,” good swing mechanics requires batters to keep their arms bent at the elbows and their hands in close to their body as the bat is launched knob end first toward the pitched ball with the barrel end lagging behind the hands. Because of the tremendous importance of this skill, and the notorious difficulty with which it is perfected, numerous drills and training aids have been devised to assist batters of all skill levels in learning to consistently lead with their hands as opposed to reaching out front with their bat.
One such training aid is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,272,978 B2 issued Sep. 25, 2012 to Windsor (“Windsor”). Windsor teaches a training aid, to be used in practice in place of a bat, that comprises a ball striking portion and a handle portion arranged one to the other at an angle from about 5° to about 45°. While this basic arrangement, used as described in Windsor, does result in better hand positioning during practice with the described training aid, the device as taught by Windsor falls short in meeting the ultimate object of the present invention, which is to provide a baseball and softball training device specifically adapted to simultaneously develop a batter's swing mechanics and muscle memory such that the skills as bettered in practice are readily transferred to use in actual play of the game.
In particular, Windsor teaches as a “primary requirement” that the head portion of the training aid must have a substantially planar front (i.e., a flat ball striking surface), regardless of the shape of other portions of the training aid, in order to achieve the stated objective of enabling a batter to determine, without the assistance of an appraising coach, whether or not his or her hands and arms are moving in the proper path. Unfortunately, this of Windsor completely ignores the importance of learning to precisely align the barrel of a bat with the center of the ball while properly controlling the path of the hands and arms.
Additionally, Windsor also fails to fully appreciate the importance of muscle memory in skills training, to with Windsor teaches a device that particularly includes a grip dramatically different than that utilized on any actual baseball or softball bat. As a result, any batter transitioning between the described training aid and an actual bat will most likely lose most if not all of the benefit of training due to the dramatically different overall “feel” presented.
With the foregoing shortcomings of the prior art clearly in mind, it is an overriding object of the present invention to provide a baseball and softball training device specifically adapted to simultaneously develop a batter's swing mechanics and muscle memory such that the skills as bettered in practice are readily transferred to use in actual play of the game. Additionally, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a training device that is also durable in use, such that the provided device may be used at all levels of play from the youngest youth to the seasoned professional. Still further, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a training device that also may be implemented with provision for adapting the device to the particular needs and/or desires of an individual batter. In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a training device that may be implemented with means for selectively interchanging various components to provide highly customizable configurations.